John Hall (3)Rezensionen

When the president of France is assassinated Holmes and Watson is one of their disguises decide to travel to Paris and investigate. With the help of a detective, an old friend, the duo infiltrate a gang of anarchists. Which leads ......
An interesting mystery, and an enjoyable read.

During the Great War, Dr Watson is working in a convalescent hospital where he meets a Major Harold Dyce. On his death bed he gives Watson his journal, an account of his time in Tibet and Persia where he met Holmes, in the post-Reichenbach Falls time. Can Watson unravel the truth.
Enjoyable historical thriller

After two middling volumes in the series, an absolute cracker-jack story, finding Holmes in restless and unhappy retirement, lured abroad and back on track. Well done all around.

Dull pastiche in which the detective doesn't make an appearance until almost two thirds of the way through the story. Being trapped inside Watson's head without Holmes is no fun.½

This was more of a chase than a whodunit, and Holmes didn't seem to know what was what half the time.

This short spin-off novel, as its title suggests, is a sequel to one of Conan Doyle's most famous short stories, A Scandal in Bohemia, in which Holmes is, to a degree, and somewhat to his chagrin, bested by the "well known adventuress" and opera singer, Irene Adler. That story revolved around a photograph of Miss Adler taken in what was to 19th century eyes, though not to ours, a compromising situation with the King of Bohemia. This sequel is a follow up with further scandal over this photograph and letters the King wrote to Miss Adler. I found the plot a little trite and the story has a Ruritanian feel to it, what with the fictional depiction of Bohemia here as an independent country rather than being as it was at the time a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a fictional capital and other towns. Worse though was that I thought the depictions of Holmes and Watson rather inauthentic. They are not the worst spin-off depictions I have encountered, but Holmes here is much more of a run of the mill detective lacking his usual intuitive and brilliant logical leaps and sometimes being outshone by Watson, who makes a fair bit of the running here. GIven this concern, I probably won't bother with any of this author's other spin-offs.

Oh dear. My writer pal who also writes Sherlock Holmes stories insisted I read some. I did and this was one of them. Oh yes, Hall knows his background BUT....but... why can't people who wish to be writers create. Fiction is just that, a made up story. You don't pinch other people's work and use it. Kids do that or those besotted fans.

To me it is just a money making scheme, like the Jane Austen explosion. She sells. Sherlock Holmes sells so write a story using their created work. I just don't call it real writing.